Labor Day: Don’t fear the rise of robots

U-T San Diego Editorial Board

When it comes to Labor Day, Americans are more likely to think of it as the holiday that symbolically brings summer to a close — and marks the return of football to television — than to engage in deep thoughts about its meaning. But among those who do, there is considerable consternation. In an era in which evermore jobs seem endangered by robots or made obsolete by technology, a holiday celebrating hard work feels a little hollow.

An Oxford University study of the 702 distinct professions identified by the U.S. Labor Department concluded 47 percent of the jobs are at risk because of technological advances, especially white-collar work that involves little critical thinking.

But the Oxford study may not be sufficiently bold in contemplating how much technology can supplant humans. In May, for example, the British venture-capital firm Deep Knowledge Ventures appointed an algorithm that analyzes investment opportunities as a voting member of its board of directors.

Yet before we assume we’re on a fast-track to a depressing, jobless dystopia, some perspective is in order. Improved technology has a history of not just creating vast new wealth but new jobs.

That’s why more than half the 1,900 experts who were part of a recent Pew Internet research project were upbeat about what our changing economy will look like.

“In a given context, automated devices like robots may displace more than they create. But they also generate new categories of work, giving rise to second- and third-order effects,” technology analyst Marjory Blumenthal told Pew. “Also, there is likely to be more human-robot collaboration — a change in the kind of work opportunities available.”

But we think this pessimism assumes a ruthless Darwinism that just doesn’t exist in the world’s large democracies. Xerox’s Glenn Edens makes the point that a nation’s economic success depends on having “a broad and large base of employed population, otherwise there will be no one to pay for all of this new world.” A nation’s political and social stability also depends on having this base.

And what’s not emphasized enough about technological gains is their potential to fundamentally reshape the world for the better. A planet in which energy was cheap, for example, would be one with a much higher standard of living for just about everyone. At a time when nanotechnology gives humans the ability to engineer at the molecular level, such a breakthrough is hardly inconceivable.

So buckle up, everyone. The future is going to be very different. But it’s foolish to assume that means it’s going to be worse.